The GSA bestows its highest honor to Dr. Henry Samueli

SAN JOSE, USA: The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), the voice of the global semiconductor industry, proudly announced the 2011 winner of the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award: industry pioneer and co-founder of Broadcom Corp., Dr. Henry Samueli. He will be presented with this lifetime achievement award during the GSA Awards Dinner Celebration on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif. Dr. Samueli is currently Broadcom’s Chief Technology Officer.

“Dr. Samueli had the foresight, innovation and belief that a semiconductor company could become highly successful without having to fabricate their own chips,” said Jodi Shelton, co-founder and president of GSA. “There are very few individuals in the semiconductor industry whose contribution and vision has benefited the fabless industry in such a profound way.”

Established in 1999, the first GSA “Exemplary Leadership Award” was given to Dr. Morris Chang, chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC). Today, the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award recognizes individuals for their exceptional contributions, exemplifying how their vision and global leadership have transformed and elevated the entire semiconductor industry.

“I am truly honored to receive this year’s Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award from the GSA. I attribute much of my success to the exceptional engineering talent I have been fortunate enough to work with and mentor over the years,” said Dr. Samueli. “It is indeed humbling to be selected as one of this esteemed group of industry pioneers who have truly changed the landscape of the semiconductor industry. I eagerly look forward to continuing my contributions to such a robust industry that is enhancing the quality of life of every person on the planet.”

After earning his Ph.D. degree from UCLA in 1980, Dr. Samueli spent his early career designing military broadband communications systems at TRW Inc. He subsequently moved on, in 1985, to become an electrical engineering professor at UCLA, where he led a research program in the area of advanced digital communications architectures and circuits. His team achieved many breakthrough developments by proving that low-cost CMOS technologies (1.0um in those days) could be used to implement all the key digital, analog and RF building blocks to enable multi-hundred Mbit/sec digital communications transceivers operating at GHz RF frequencies.

Dr. Samueli subsequently founded Broadcom in 1991 with one of his Ph.D. students, Henry Nicholas. In the early days the company pioneered the US cable industry’s transition to digital television by creating the world’s first broadband digital cable transmission solution, which ultimately expanded and evolved into one of Broadcom’s major business areas today, encompassing a complete portfolio of technologies for the digital home. Another early project involved the development of the industry’s first all-digital CMOS implementation of a Fast Ethernet transceiver.

This pioneering work launched Broadcom into its second major business segment, which today encompasses a complete portfolio of transmission and switching technologies for the infrastructure and networking market.

Another significant innovation that was leveraged from the UCLA research program was the development of high-performance Radio Frequency (RF) technology produced using standard bulk digital CMOS and, more importantly, demonstrating the ability to integrate these sensitive RF circuits on the same substrate as high-speed digital basebands. This pioneering work enabled Broadcom to introduce the world’s first true single-chip all-CMOS implementations of both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless transceivers, which has evolved into Broadcom’s third major business segment today, encompassing a complete portfolio of RF and baseband technologies for the cellular and wireless connectivity markets.

Dr. Samueli’s dedication and leadership extends well beyond Broadcom, with his service and influence being felt throughout the research, university and start-up communities. Although full-time at Broadcom since 1995, Dr. Samueli has maintained his professorship (on-leave) in electrical engineering at UCLA, and a distinguished adjunct professorship in electrical engineering and computer science at UC Irvine.

He also serves on the UC President’s Board on Science and Innovation and is on the Chancellor’s Advisory Councils at both UCLA and UC Irvine. He also chairs the Dean’s Advisory Councils of both the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UC Irvine.

In 2000, Dr. Samueli was awarded the University of California Presidential Medal, the UC Irvine Medal, the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Industrial Pioneer Award, as well as the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science Alumnus of the Year. Dr. Samueli was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2000, a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2003, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. In 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the Edward A. Dickson Alumnus of the Year from UCLA. In 2006, he received the IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Industry Leaders Award, and in 2010 he received the UCLA Medal.

Henry and his wife Susan are active philanthropists, having created the Samueli Foundation after Broadcom’s IPO in 1998. The Samueli’s also own the Anaheim Ducks National Hockey League club, which won the Stanley Cup Championship in 2007.

Broadcom has previously won 15 GSA awards and is nominated for two awards at this year’s GSA Awards Dinner Celebration.

The dinner is made possible by title sponsor TSMC, VIP sponsor NASDAQ OMX and networking reception sponsor GLOBALFOUNDRIES, as well as general sponsors Advantest, Amkor, ARM, ASE Group, Barclays, Broadcom, Cadence Design Systems, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, Integrated Device Technology, J.P. Morgan, KPMG, Magnachip, Marvell, Model N, Morgan Stanley, Needham, NVIDIA, NetLogic Microsystems, PWC, QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies, Samsung and UMC.